The Unexpected Life
by SasukeBlade
Summary: -Life is messy. Love is messier.- And sometimes your happy ending is where you least expected it to be.


I first created this story's document in April of 2008. Tonight I chose the quotes to begin and end it.

* * *

_"You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel."_

O-O-O

It is sunset before they return. Porianze's helm gleams like a crown in the distance the moment they crest the last hill, and the villagers around you burst into cheers.

"Cutting it a little close, don't you think?" your husband murmurs in your ear. You brush his words off with ease. Bryan, the caravan leader, has never let the village down, would never let the village down, you tell him.

This assurance is based more on the faith that Bryan, your childhood friend, would never let _you_ down.

O-O-O

Lon frowns as he finishes lacing up his furs. "Not coming to the festival?" he asks, pausing beside where you sit at the table.

"I don't feel well," you say, holding your stomach, and try to ignore the hope that leaps into his eyes. What he wants, you may not be capable of giving. Besides, it's true, you're so nervous your belly is churning with all the what ifs.

He doesn't look at you. You have both made a careful study of not looking at the other person these past months. "All right. I'll probably be with Timothy and Aleuts, then. If you come looking for me."

You don't look at him either. You know what you will find on his face.

He already knows you won't come looking for him.

O-O-O

Bryan dances like he is possessed by the wild things that lurk beyond the crystal's reach. With the fire behind him and his village around him, he raises his hands to the sky and looks untouchable, godlike.

There is something fierce about the way he looks at you, beckons to you. You are drawn up and out of your seat before you realize where your steps are taking you.

You dance, then. Like all those years ago, when the two of you were eight years old, but different somehow. His touches light fires on your skin, and his absences extinguish them. You have never felt this before.

For the first time, you crave another person's hands on you in a way you'd never thought possible.

O-O-O

Somewhere down the hillside torches flicker in the breeze that started shortly before dusk. If you listen closely enough you can hear parts of the twisting melodies, mostly the trill of the pipes with a background hum of an awkwardly played lute. If you were a Yuke maybe your ears would carry the rhythmic dash of the tambourine as well, but you are not and so your memories must provide the rest of the music for you.

He's supposed to be down there celebrating the safe return of his caravan, you're supposed to be down there smiling and arm in arm with your fisherman husband. Instead the both of you stand facing one another in the dark of the night. From this point on the cliff you can see so much, from the dancing of the other villagers around the crystal to the eternal crash of the ocean waves, only visible by the foam gathered on their surfaces beneath the moon. You can see so much of the world, from one horizon to the next, but you cannot see his face and you cannot see what he is thinking.

Though his face is shadowed you know he is looking at you, piercing you with his eyes. Here in this darkness you have no defenses, not that you ever did when it came to him. He has always been special.

"I don't understand, Aras," he says after a moment. The simple wedding charm on your bracelet suddenly seems more prominent than ever before, enlarged beneath his gaze. "I didn't know you were… I hadn't realized Lon Bret and you… when? _Why?_" Funny how you thought you wouldn't hurt him.

Fiddling with the charm has become habit by now, a self-conscious tic that only arose recently, when the village women began to send glances at your still flat abdomen. "After you left, before the end of spring." You can sense the way he tenses without even seeing it. Sad that even with so much more than distance separating you both you still know him so well.

"I see," he says, and in that moment, the way his voice is so guarded and how he turns to leave, you fear you might lose him forever.

"It wasn't a love match!" you blurt, biting your lip immediately afterwards. You don't mean to say it, no matter how the knowledge of you being married to someone else might destroy him. It isn't anyone's business but your own, and about half the village. Tipa isn't big enough to avoid knowing everyone's business, and the arranged marriage between the fisherman's son and the tailor's daughter has been the talk of the town for months. For you it's old news, but for Bryan it's the latest in a long line of tragedies.

He's been your best friend for over a decade now, and you can already anticipate the anger in his voice as he grits the words through his teeth. "Then why did you marry him? Didn't you know how I felt? Didn't you know that I was going to ask for your hand?"

"How could I have known?" You would be screaming if it weren't for the fear of being discovered. Imagine the gossip that would start if they found the _still not pregnant _fisherman's wife with another man. The harsh tone you settle for in place of the cathartic shouting is a poor substitute at best. "You never said anything! If you had just said something, if you hadn't joined the caravan--"

The words almost explode from him; the caravan is a sore point. "Well I'm sorry I wasn't around to wait on you hand and foot, princess! While you were gallivanting around with Lon I was just _slightly_ busy gathering myrrh, much as that should take second place to you in my priorities. I don't get it Aras, _what more did you want from me? _I didn't figure out how I felt until after I joined. I became the leader in three years so your parents would look favorably on us, and you went off and married the first man who asked?"

There is pain in his voice, and it is mirrored by the slow tears that drip down your cheeks. "I couldn't _do it anymore_, Bryan!" You can't help shouting now, needing to stop his cruel words before they stab in the already deep wounds your heart carries. "Not once, in all the letters and all the visits, in all the comings and goings, did you _ever_ say you loved me. Don't you understand?" The tears are coming faster now and you have to choke back a sob. "I need something more to go on than a hastily scrawled letter every few months. I could have not agreed to the proposal, and then what? You would leave me to the life of a spinster while you figured out your _feelings_ for me?"

"You could have not agreed, and then you could have had me," he says quietly. "But I guess that's one road neither of us will ever be walking."

"I guess not," you say, more bitterly than you would have liked.

Nothing is settled, you know this as the previous anger becomes a tense and awkward silence. Naively, you had hoped this meeting would be a happy reunion between friends, all past conflicts forgiven. Somehow the exact opposite has happened: everything ugly has come to light, and nothing has been resolved.

Desperate for something, anything than this tenseness between you, you babble the first thing that comes to mind. "Nice weather we're having."

With his face turned upwards to look at the starry night you can actually see the way his lips quirk into a smile. "I didn't mean for it to go this way."

Confused, you don't respond until he turns to look at you once more, and the sadness in his eyes is tangible. "I didn't mean for our reunion to happen like this," he elaborates, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind the shell of your ear. His fingers pause there, and it is so much more than just simple contact, the warmth of the gesture sending a shudder down your spine. "I was hoping you would be happy to see me."

"I am," you whisper, because anything louder would break this tenuous, tender moment between you. Much as you have a duty to your husband, your heart has always been free of any such notions as duty or honor. Much as you have been angry at Bryan's absence, your heart has always been free of any such notion as sound judgment or logic.

You are _married_, you remind yourself as his hand smoothes through your hair, traces the lines of your neck, curves down your shoulder and around your elbow. You have a duty to your husband, you think as the pressure of his hand turns into a gentle tug and your own hand presses lightly against Bryan's chest. You really don't give a damn anymore, you realize as you tighten your grip until his shirt is bunched and wrinkled in your palm and your knuckles are bone white in the dark.

The grip on your elbow is almost painful now because the next step is inevitable. There are some lines Bryan won't cross, just absolutely won't, and this is one of them. There are only two ways to go from here, and both will leave the two of you broken. You will just be the one to choose how.

The decision isn't as hard as you thought it would be. You've always been practical. Better to have a memory than nothing at all.

"Yes," you say, though he never asked a question, and you might very well have released a force of nature.

He's so tall now, finally grown into the man you knew he would become all those years before, back when the two of you were just kids playing hide and seek in his family's orchard. His scent is indefinably masculine, a mixture of steel and grass and rain and an odd sickly smell you realize is the taint of miasma. To your own chagrin it occurs to you that you must stink of fish guts and antiseptic but he doesn't seem to mind as he buries his face in the crook between your neck and shoulder and breathes deeply.

Lips press gently to the sensitive skin below your ear, mouthing unintelligible words as they trail over your neck. You whimper at the contact, gasp at the way he nips your pulse point. You are treading dangerous territory, but you've always trusted him to lead the way.

Not to say you are motionless or innocent in this merciful adultery. Your own hands are mapping the contours of his back, measuring the width of his shoulders, discovering the feel and heat of his body as he pulls yours against it. In that moment, as thighs and belly and breasts meet thighs and abdomen and chest you wish you had waited for him. In that moment, you wish you could go back to those happy times in the orchard before everything became so complicated. You wish you could do it all over again.

His lips are on your jaw, on your cheek, at the corner of your mouth. You won't be passive, not now, because this is as much about you as it is about him. This is everything you wanted in life and nothing you got. This is what you missed somewhere along the way, and you'll be damned if you don't take this chance for it while it's offered.

You kiss him, or maybe he kisses you, but you forget all about the order of things in the meeting of your lips with his. Powerful awareness of the trembling hand cupping your face only makes you kiss him harder. His lips part beneath the fervor of your own and you take advantage of it without a second thought, reaching up to slide the hand at the side of your face down your body to your breast. A sharp exhalation marks the touch, startling the both of you.

Bryan is the one to break the kiss then, yanking his hand away as if he's been burned. His eyes are wide as they look into your own, breath coming in harsh pants. "I'm sorry," he says after a moment, unconsciously licking his lips. "I didn't mean, it's just, I didn't want… you're married!" he finally blurts, and you know that the wildness of his gaze is a strange mixture of love and guilt and lust. "I love you, and you're married!"

You're sorry too, but sorry isn't enough anymore. Regret is a funny, demanding thing, and you'll be damned if you let him get away now. You may loathe yourself for this later, but if he's yours tonight, it will be worth it.

There's no way to convey this now. What you intend, what you want, is a sin. You're not going to play the denial card. "I know," you say, and some of that wildness in him dies a swift and sudden death. There can be no night of senseless passion between the two of you, no night of being swept away between the bed sheets. This must be mindful, as much an act of forgiveness as it is an act of forgetfulness.

This time it is undoubtedly _you_ who kisses _him_ first. It is a chaste kiss, but crowded with feelings nonetheless. He shivers beneath the soothing, smoothing motions of your palms against his back.

This time, he is the one to take it further.

Somewhere in the midst of a breath and a curse and a kiss he pulls back, fingers already fumbling at the ties to your coat. Time flies but nothing blurs; come morning you will remember how your hands shook too much to undo the fourth button of his jerkin, you will remember each and every butterfly kiss he placed against your neck, you will remember his hands on every inch of you. You will not forget.

Bryan spreads his jerkin on the soft grass to the side of the path, and even though he's far too big to fit on the cloth he stretches out anyway. He pats the space beside him, and the wink he shoots you is so exaggerated you could probably see it even without the moonlight. It's inevitable; first a giggle, then a full on belly laugh escapes you. His eyes widen comically.

"Quiet, Aras!" He says, but he's grinning too. "You want us to get caught?"

Biting back the giggles only results in a loud snort. A moment of stunned silence follows before you both burst into laughter.

It's awhile before the humor wears off.

"Bryan," you say, pausing to gasp for breath and clutch at the stitch in your side, "You make me so happy it's ridiculous."

Somewhere in between all the giggling you've finally sank beside him onto the makeshift blanket, and when he turns to look at you his eyes are almost level with your own. His face is abruptly serious as he says, "That's the way it should be," and in your haste to kiss him you nearly knock him over.

His hands are on your hips and on your waist and sliding the open coat from your shoulders; it falls to the damp grass only to lay forgotten as he takes your hand and marks the path from wrist to elbow with his lips. You bite your own lip when his teeth gently scrape the inside of your elbow, gasp at the sensation of the fine hair brushing your collarbone as his mouth traverses the tops of your breasts. Before he can even begin to fumble at the laces of your shirt you undo them, sliding the fur lined green cloth from your chest.

Brian's eyes take in the sight of your breasts bared to the silvery light, bared to his scrutiny, and the silence stretches for so long you almost cover your chest.

"God, Aras," he says, and you shiver not from the cold but from the heated reverence of his voice. "You're incredible."

You can't bear his stare, so nakedly awed, and so you reach down to where his hands have fallen to grip the fabric of his trousers and take them in your own, placing them on your abdomen. His hands are warm, surprisingly so, and they heat your body from the inside out as you slide them up to cup and caress your breasts.

He swallows hard, but at least his hands are moving of their own accord now, and he's so _gentle_, as if you were made of glass. You can't help but let out a sigh when his thumb brushes over your nipple, once, then twice, coaxing it to a firm peak. A startled gasp quickly follows when he lowers his head to take that same nipple in his mouth.

One of your hands finds a firm grip in his hair, probably rips a few strands out, but both the other hand and your mind are occupied with the fabric of Bryan's shirt, and wondering as to why it's still on him.

"Off," you say, nearly choking on the word when he lightly squeezes your other breast. "Bryan, I want--"

He pulls away, and in the absence of his mouth your skin prickles in the cool night air. The shirt is unlaced and tossed aside without another thought and the both of you return to your explorations. His chest is mostly devoid of hair but for a trail beginning at his navel and ending in a place you hope to explore shortly. You run your hands over the smooth skin and laugh as he inhales sharply.

"Your hands are _cold_," he hisses, only to yelp when you slide one hand beneath the waistband of his trousers. "I'm not joking!"

He takes both of your hands in his own and chafes them, and the absurdity of the situation makes you grin. Here you both are, shirtless and wanting, and rather than catering to that wanting you are warming your hands. Being with the caravan has obviously skewed Bryan's priorities.

"Are they warm enough now?" you ask, voice heavy with sarcasm, and Bryan plants quick kisses on the palms of your hands before letting go.

His smile could light up the world. "Good as new," he says, and suddenly his hands are at your knees and moving upward. You return to fumbling at the clasp of his breeches, finally getting the buttons right and yanking them and his underclothes down to his knees.

Crickets chirp somewhere down the path as you silently thank whatever gods are in charge of making men well-endowed. A giggle bubbles up in your throat as you draw back, the situation suddenly awkward. This is _Bryan_ of all people, your best friend, the boy you've known since before you could walk, and you're about to make love to him?

You clench your jaw to keep the nervous laughter in but he knows you too well, knows each and every quirk of your face, knows something has changed. "Are you all right?" he asks, and then in a rush, as if he's been afraid of this and planning for it since the beginning, "If you want to stop, just tell me, and I will. I understand--"

A hand on his jaw keeps his head still and tilted at the right angle as you move in to kiss him once more, your lips colliding with his teeth. They are slick with saliva, both his and yours, but this tidbit of information is forgotten in the next instant as he struggles to keep up with your changing moods. The laughter is still there, hiding in the back of your throat, and you nearly push him over in your haste to keep it there. You can't think any more about this, because if you do you will ask him to stop.

You can't hold back anymore. You won't. You're tired of making mistakes, of constantly hurting each other in this endless cycle for no better reason than pride and tradition. You should have waited. He should have officially courted you. Neither of you should have given a damn about what the others might say. It's both your faults. It's neither. It's not an issue anymore, not to you.

The laughter is forgotten as you press your palms to his shoulders, pushing at his torso until he is flat on his back. He is pale in the moonlight, normally suntanned skin alabaster. Were it not for the rise and fall of his chest as he stares up at you, he could have been a statue, stone skin smoothed by rain and time and miasma.

From down the hillside the music slows to a halt, then begins again in a slow promenade. Right now the others are dancing, pulling loved ones close and swaying to the tune, or feasting, basking in the glow of good food and good friends. Perhaps some have even slipped away into the shadows to make their own music.

"Aras," Bryan's voice, rougher than usual, cuts in through your thoughts, and you are once more transfixed by his dark gaze. "You either need to move or… well, you need to move."

"What? Oh," you say dimly, and suddenly his hands are on your hips and forcing, _grinding_ you down over his erection. "Oh."

He grins. "'Oh' is right." Deft fingers slip beneath your skirt, pulling your loincloth to one side as they slip inside you and feel the wetness. His eyes widen at this but there is no change in the steady motion of his fingers as they slide in and out of you, rubbing and stretching along the way. "Ready?" he asks as he removes his hands from you in order to do the same to your clothes.

Are you? With that one word you are reminded of a thousand different things; the way the two of you would hold hands before leaping into the river, the look on his face as the wagon pulled away with him in it for the first time, the way he danced so fiercely tonight, one hand outstretched and a feral glint in his eye.

You wrap a hand around his cock, pumping a few times for good measure, then rise up higher on your knees. His eyes never leave yours as you position yourself over him, one hand on his chest and the other holding his erection upright. Though Bryan is longer, your hus--well, you've experience with thicker. There should be no problem.

There is no problem. You lower yourself onto him with ease, lips parted in a silent gasp at the sensation. He rubs inside of you in all the right ways and you have to pause for a moment to regain your bearings. The oddest things occur to you in those few seconds: how hard the ground is beneath your knees, and how the breeze raises goose pimples all along your arms, breasts, and stomach. The contrast of the cool night and the sheer warmth Bryan exudes even now is both surprising and exhilarating.

"Ready?" he asks again. But you've always been ready. It was only a matter of time.

With your knees bent at sharp angles, palms braced flat against the cloth beside his head, you begin to move, a slow, forward, diagonal motion that has his teeth gritting from the start. At first you worry that you've hurt him somehow, and then you catch that wild look in his eyes, that tenuous set to his jaw, and you know that it's only because he wants this as badly as you do.

And you do want it. You're nearly crippled from the want of it, each slide of his cock within you bringing a sharp intake of air. You're panting from more than just exertion as the slow, easy motion gives way to sharper, more vertical bounces. You're moaning from more than just pain as the rocks dig into your shins. You're whimpering from more than just the bruises your knees will bear come morning.

Bryan leans up on his elbows to kiss you, only to fall back after a short tangling of lips and tongues. He is moaning too, soft sounds that leave you almost as weak as his kiss. Short, labored pants come from his mouth and his hands grip at your waist, nearly twisting you to one side as his muscles tense beneath this sexual onslaught. Occasionally you can see the whites of his eyes flash in the dark as he looks from your face to your breasts and then to where your bodies join.

The moon is bright tonight, the stars out in droves, and you're grateful for this for many reasons, but mainly for the fact that when Bryan comes, you are able to record each and every moment of it in your memory. The way it seems his entire body tightens, from his hands to his jaw, the way he arches involuntarily, pushing deeper into you, the way his mouth falls open as his voice rises and breaks in a wordless moan. Watching it happen and knowing that you are the cause of it is an amazing feeling, and you stop your movement to watch him come down from this high place.

Though you aren't sated, you rise off of him anyway and lay beside him, tucking into the curve of his side with ease. He wearily raises an arm for you, panting in the aftermath.

"I'm sorry," he manages after a moment. "You didn't, ah," he trails off, uncertain how to word this unfamiliar statement.

"Don't worry about it," you say, and then hopefully, tentatively, "Just don't make a habit of it."

He laughs, a sharp, short bark of sound. "I won't."

The silence is easier now, gentler. Soft shushing sounds of the wind and waves overtake the barely there music, and a particularly long blade of grass strokes your bare calf with each puff of air. Bryan touches your face delicately with his fingertips, sending small shivers down your spine. "I love you," he says, and kisses each tribal tattoo on your face.

You want to say the same, but the words stick in your throat and you lay silent, body growing cooler by the moment. Though he embraces you, lays his face in the crook of your neck and shoulder and breathes you in, you have never felt farther away from him than you do right now.

In one heady, frightening moment you can see the future. In this future, Bryan is still the caravan leader and you are still the fisherman's wife. No one ever knows about this affair. No one ever puts the equation together as to why you are nowhere to be seen every crystal festival. It breaks Bryan's heart, but he continues to come back to you. For years, you are his and his alone for a few precious nights, until the day he doesn't return with the rest of the caravan.

Already you can see it, can feel the anguish, a phantom shadow over the heart. Picturing that dismal life makes you want to both cling to him as tightly as possible, and run away from him as fast you can. There is no future in him, you realize. No future in the two of you.

When he kisses you long and hard, lips pressed tightly together, then rises and dresses for the second time today, you can't decide whether you want to laugh at the foolishness of it all, or weep.

O-O-O

When you at last slip into the small cabin, finally finished washing in the stream and drying out, Lon is already sleeping.

It would be easy to hate him, to blame him for all of this, but you don't. He is a good man, a good husband. Perhaps you do not love him, at least, not in the way you love Bryan. That is not a crime.

Hands trembling slightly as you shiver in the cold, you unlace your furs, remove your boots, peel off your stockings and skirt. The bed is soft, if a bit small. You crawl in beside your husband, doing your best not to disturb him. He wakes anyway.

He is dazed, his movements slow with sleep as he wraps his arms around you, as he moves your hair aside to kiss the back of your neck. He pauses. Does he know? Can he somehow smell the other man on you?

But no, he resumes the kisses, hands reaching around to cup your breasts, to stroke the smooth skin of your belly. You sigh, turn to him, wrap your arms around his neck and tangle your fingers in his hair. _This_, here and now, is your future.

You tell yourself you can be satisfied with this as he moves over you, around you, breath coming in harsh pants as he satisfies the ache that Bryan left behind. You tell yourself that this is what you want.

You close your eyes when you reach that peak, the better to forget.

O-O-O

The next morning you stand with the rest of the early-risers at the village entrance, giving a few last words of advice and encouragement to the caravan. They are incredibly brave, all of them, from the tiny but feisty Marian to the quiet yet regal Porianze. And, of course, there is Bryan, who is still the kindest man you know.

Really, you're there for him. He knows it, and despite the events of yesterday there is no uneasiness. He truly does love you, it is magnificent and obvious in the way he smiles for you, and only for you. It is in the way he touches your hand, and holds you tightly to him before clambering onto the back of the wagon. His gaze never leaves yours as the caravan sets out, trundling down the path and onto the road to the flatlands. You stand there waving with the rest until they are out of sight.

O-O-O

Porianze's mother takes you aside one morning several months later as you idly make your way to the miller's for more flour. "Come to the apothecary this evening," she says softly, so quietly the other wives don't even realize she is speaking to you. "We have much to discuss."

When you shut the door to the dim room behind you, trepidation welling in your chest, the Yuke woman doesn't wait for pleasantries. "You are pregnant," she says bluntly. "Now, there are several options--"

She is forced to halt her list of choices when the blood drains from your face and you sink into the nearest chair, fighting the urge to panic the whole way.

O-O-O

In the future you saw, that night on the cliff, there was never any indication of this.

You count the days again, then again. Resisting the urge to number them again, you sit in one of the poorly made chairs that surround your table and cradle your head in your hands. It has been over three months since you had your last moon cycle.

How did the slight nausea that occurred some nights not reveal this? Or the sudden urges to eat rainbow grapes, so strong that you begged the farmer's wife to set part of the harvest aside for you? You can answer that one for yourself. It was never enough of a problem to make you think. It wasn't troublesome enough to warrant concern. Healers, while not expensive, are not cheap enough to waste on such a small thing.

Swearing now, you pound the table with your fist. No wonder the village wives had started to look on you more favorably! It wasn't that they'd finally pulled their collective heads from their rears. That would never happen! Somehow they knew before you did, probably from sheer experience, possibly from just listening and watching closely.

Guilt makes you tap your fingers incessantly. You count the days again, if only in the desperate hope that there had been an error in the first three counts. But no, it is entirely possible that this is Bryan's child, just as it is entirely possible that this is Lon's. You had almost given up on children. Now what?

O-O-O

Days pass as you grapple with what you should do, and eventually the thought emerges that _no one need ever know_.

If the child is Bryan's, the most important if there is, it is likely that he or she will appear to be more of a Selkie than a Clavat. You have seen halfbloods before, Leuda's caravan had stopped by a few years ago, and with hair that blond there was no way Dah Yis was a full blooded Selkie. Selkie blood may be odd, but it runs strong.

If the child is Lon's, well, all the better. In the early days of your marriage you had spoken hopefully of a family, of a son or daughter. You could be happy, you realize, as you pass a hand over your stomach.

In those days that pass, you also contemplate the other options that Porianze's mother told you. It would be all too easy to walk up the road and ask for the potion that few speak of but all know of. It might be better to not even take the chance. But the potion is damaging, harmful to the taker with the tendency to leave a woman barren, and you truly do want children someday. You're just not sure if you want them so soon.

The decision is not easy, but one night as Lon returns from checking his nets in the stream, you sit him down and ask him if he could add a nursery onto your two room cabin in the next several months.

At first he looks at you quizzically and says, "Well, I guess that'd be fine."

So you call him dense, and watch with an odd mixture of dread and glee when he finally realizes what's going on. He laughs suddenly, delightedly, drops to his knees to face your belly and talk to the child.

"Baby," he says, lips brushing your skin with every syllable. "Baby, baby, baby, we've been hoping for you." He laughs again. "Your Ma and me, we're so happy. Can't wait to see you."

You laugh as well, and pray that he won't be disappointed.

O-O-O

"Hey," Lon says one night as you lay side by side, not touching one another. He rolls to his side and takes your hand in his, twining his fingers with yours. "I know this isn't what you thought your life would be like." He pauses, and it is as if he left you clinging to the edge of a cliff. You can only wait for the fall.

"But it hasn't been all that bad, right?" he asks, and there is a neediness there you hadn't expected to hear.

You think back to the nights before the caravan's return and the silences you endured. You think back to the nights since then, the conversations that began stiltedly and at last became easy. You brush your entwined fingertips over the tight skin of your stomach.

"No," you say softly, "Not bad at all."

There is something in the way he kisses you that night, but you can't quite put your finger on it.

O-O-O

It is a boy, a son. He squirms around in the healer's arms as if he already longs to swim beside his father and cast nets.

When all is said and done, as you lay propped up by pillows and clutching the newborn to your chest, Lon lays beside you in the bed and touches the tiny fingers. "Good grip," he mutters to himself and you cast a jaundiced eye at your husband, knowing he already has visions of long days shared between father and son out in the river.

The baby has the same dark colored, metallic purple hair that covers your head. His, however, is still more fuzz and down than actual hair. Despite the sallet that covered her face, you could sense that Porianze's mother grinned at the sight.

Lon lays stretched out on his side, propped up on one elbow so that he might continue to look at his son. With one gentle finger he strokes the boy's hair. "Sweet one," he says, "What should we call him?"

As if somehow understanding that he is being talked about, the infant opens his mouth in a wide yawn, eyes opening partially as if to reassure himself that you are both still present. His eyes are the pale blue color that nearly all babies share.

Selkie coloring is bizarre at the best of times, you remind yourself, and regain your previous calm. "Jiel Soh?" you suggest. Names had been discussed, and it was the one you'd both come the closest to agreeing on. The easiest translation comes out to 'the unexpected beauty of the crescent moon.' For Lon, it is a homage to his father, Soh Rin. For you, it's all in the unpredictable beauty.

Lon nods. "Fitting," he remarks, gesturing over his shoulder to the matching moon beyond the window. "Jiel Soh," he says softly. "The fisherman's son."

"Yes," you say, and he embraces you from the side, lips pressed against your cheek in a way that is both tender and aching.

O-O-O

The caravan once again reaches Tipa with little time to spare, but this time you don't have quite the same faith in their return. There is so much more riding on that trundling little wagon now, so much more to lose.

Jiel Soh fills your arms, and you rock him gently as you wait for the ensuing crowd of people to thin. Part of you hopes for some reaction from him. Part of you thinks this is stupid.

At last the chaos dies down, and he is suddenly there in front of you. It seems that each year you have to memorize the lines of his face all over again. For a long moment you are both silent.

"Is he mine?" Bryan finally asks, an unreadable expression on his face as he peers at your son's face.

"No," you say firmly, because it's true, and no small measure of relief passes over his face. In that moment, though you still love him dearly, you know that what transpired the year before on that hilltop will never happen again. Part of you mourns the loss of escape. The rest is already focused on the life, the future you have now.

O-O-O

He is five years old, smiling and good tempered and so full of energy, his father's son, when your mother turns to you after a long visit and says, "You might fool poor Lon, but you can't pull the wool over the eyes o' your own Ma. Wonderful man though he is, Lon couldn't have fathered that boy, not with those eyes and that temper. So who did?"

She is watching you carefully, and you have to set down the mug of tea you hold. "He's the fisherman's boy," you say just as casually. And he is.

Then Jiel Soh is six, and eight, and ten, and twelve. He helps his father with the nets, like Lon always imagined he would, and kisses you on the cheek every night before he falls asleep. He is a good boy. You always knew he would be.

He walks in long, ranging strides that seem to conquer each inch of dirt he covers. He grows to a height far above your own, even above his father's. His grandmother, your mother, claims he has grown each time he sees her, which is every day. He laughs at these comments, and at the world in general. He learns history and science from the Yukes and fighting from the Lilties down the road. His best friend is the merchant's son and he gets his first kiss from the miller's daughter on his fifteenth birthday.

And then he is seventeen years old, and you recognize the signs before Lon does. He wants more from this life than just a good catch each day. You've seen this wanderlust before, in another boy. You couldn't stop it then and you don't even try to now.

The day he leaves for the caravan, he kisses you long and hard on the forehead, lips pressed tightly together as if even the smallest breach will allow a torrent of emotions to escape. And then he leaves without looking back, spine ramrod straight. His racket is in his hand and you know that his grin is firmly in place between the clan tattoos on his cheeks.

"He's in good hands," Lon remarks with the confidence of experience as he watches his own, his only walk away with Bryan. The silver in your old friend's brown hair is more prominent than you ever remember it being. You wonder how your son will fare in the caravan, if it will become something he lives through, like Lon, or something he lives for, like Bryan.

Either way, he will be all right. Adventure is in his blood.

Jiel Soh is his father's son. You've always known that.

O-O-O

_It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was._


End file.
